David Grisman (born March 23, 1945 in Hackensack, New Jersey) is a Jewish bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist and composer of acoustic music. In the early 1990s, he started the Acoustic Disc record label in an effort to preserve and spread acoustic or instrumental music. Grisman grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey.[1] He started his musical career in 1963 as a member of Even Dozen Jug Band. His nickname, "Dawg" was affectionately assigned by his close friend Jerry Garcia in 1973 (the two met in 1964 at a Bill Monroe show at Sunset Park in West Grove, PA). "Dawg Music" is what he calls his mixture of bluegrass and Django Reinhardt-Stéphane Grappelli-influenced jazz, as highlighted on his 1977 album "Hot Dawg". Stephane Grappelli played on a couple of tracks on the Hot Dawg album and then the 1981 recording "Stephane Grappelli and David Grisman Live". It was Grisman's combination of Reinhardt-era Jazz, bluegrass, folk, Old World Mediterranean string band music, as well as modern Jazz fusion that came to embody "Dawg" music.